A European Push to Save the International Space Station
According to this article at the BBC News website the European Space Agency’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain is pushing to keep the ISS going until the year 2020. This is critical as support for the station is up for review, and signs are pointing to pulling the plug by 2015:
Jean-Jacques Dordain
“I am convinced that stopping the station in 2015 would be a mistake because we cannot attract the best scientists if we are telling them today ‘you are welcome on the space station but you’d better be quick because in 2015 we close the shop’.”
I think while these words are good that Europe needs to be willing to be willing to expand funding for the project if they want to bring the other partners (US, Russia, Japan and Canada) along with them. I’d also argue that allowing China and India to be involved with the project would also be a good idea.